title: Rough primes and rough conversations: evidence for a modality-specific basis to mental metaphors.
abstract: How does our brain organize knowledge? Traditional theories assume that our knowledge is represented abstractly in an amodal conceptual network of formal logic symbols. The theory of embodied cognition challenges this view and argues that conceptual representations that constitute our knowledge are grounded in sensory and motor experiences. We tested this hypothesis by examining how the concept of social coordination is grounded metaphorically in the tactile sensation of roughness. Participants experienced rough or smooth touch before being asked to judge an ambiguous social interaction. Results revealed that rough touch made social interactions appear more difficult and adversarial, consistent with the rough metaphor. This impact of tactile cues on social impressions was accompanied by a network including primary and secondary somatosensory cortices, amygdala, hippocampus and inferior prefrontal cortex. Thus, the roughness of tactile stimulation affected metaphor-relevant (but not metaphor-irrelevant) behavioral and neural responses. Receiving touch from a rough object seems to trigger the application of associated ontological concepts (or scaffolds) even for unrelated people and situations (but not to unrelated or more general feelings). Since this priming was based on somatosensory brain areas, our results provide support for the theory that sensorimotor grounding is intrinsic to cognitive processes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany and Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany mischa@neuro2.med.uni-magdeburg.de.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schaefer
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany and Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Denke
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany and Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Hans-Jochen
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Heinze
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, 39120 Magdeburg, Germany and Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rotte
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007600:Judgment; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D019365:Metaphor; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010812:Physical Stimulation; D012919:Social Behavior; D014110:Touch; D055698:Touch Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: embodiment; fMRI; social; somatosensory cortex; touch